


A Thousand Shades of Blue

by Dracoduceus



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Human Jesse McCree, Implied Major Character Death (Offscreen), M/M, serpent monster Hanzo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-05 18:43:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20278018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracoduceus/pseuds/Dracoduceus
Summary: Running away from his pursuers, McCree stumbles into a marsh.There, he meets a strange creature.





	A Thousand Shades of Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [a comic](https://twitter.com/killmerzo/status/1156797288448086016?s=21) that [IchigoWhiskey](https://twitter.com/ichigowhiskey) sent to me one day. I couldn't get the idea out of my head and this was born. 
> 
> Unfortunately, these kinds of stories don't always have happy endings.

McCree is suspicious that his pursuers suddenly peeled away, letting him stumble through the marshes alone. He stumbled through the wet moss, over narrow paths of pounded dirt and wondered why nobody has shot him dead yet.

Like his former friends who used the Gorge, they probably used the bogs and marshes to dispose of bodies. This was probably one less step for them.

Gasping, he tripped over a chunk of moss and fell heavily to his knees at the edge of one of the ponds. There was a peculiar property to it: somehow it seemed both clear and murky and perhaps it was blood loss, but McCree felt mesmerized by it, by suspended dirt and motes, by the intense blue-green-grey of the water that seemed to go down and down and down forever.

McCree sighed, his head hanging low over the water. He watched a drop of blood slide down his nose and fall into the water. It fell and fluttered like silk scarves before it dissipated in the water completely.

As if summoned, something stirred in the depths: a pale face with dark eyes. McCree watched it rise and rise, holding his breath in sympathy.

Long before the pale face broke the surface, McCree felt his lungs burning. His gasping made his wounds hurt, his head pound; more blood dripped into the water, pooled in the moss beneath his knees.

The creature that broke the surface watched him with all-black eyes. Then it blinked and its eyes looked more human, its face flushing with a hint of life so that it seemed less like some kind of waterlogged corpse and more like a person treading water.

“You are alive,” the creature said in a pleasant voice that sounded male.

McCree’s lips were numb when he said, “You’re not human. What are you?”

The creature seemed amused by this. “I am not,” it replied. “I am not human. They call me a monster in the bogs. I suppose it is true enough—a monster is as a monster does, is that not true?”

“Perhaps,” McCree agreed and wondered if this was just a hallucination as he slowly bled out. “They feed you their dead.”

“I eat well enough,” the creature replied.

“What shall I call you?” McCree asked. “What do you call yourself?”

The creature peered at him. “You can call me Hanzo. I was once known by that name, a long time ago.”

There was a story there, but McCree was fairly certain that he’d die by the time he heard the end of it. “Are you going to kill me?”

“Why?” the creature, Hanzo, asked. “Time will do that for me.”

McCree swayed. “I don’t want…” he trailed off, wondering for a moment why he might confide in such a creature. “I don’t want to die that way.”

“Then how do you want to die?”

“With a bang,” McCree said, the edges of his awareness going dark and hazy. “With a fight. I don’t want to fade away like…like…”

Hanzo watched him thoughtfully. “Come here,” the creature said, lifting their hands out of the water. For a moment they were as pale as a corpse’s; a breath later, they became flushed as if living tissue,  _ as if human _ . “You do not wish to fade away, as here-and-gone-again as silver bubbles.”

“And if I go with you?” McCree asked, leaning forward on his hands.

“You will come with me whether you intend to or not,” Hanzo pointed out.

McCree sighed and leaned forward over the edge of the water, within reach of Hanzo’s extended arms. “Give me a kiss, then,” he said deliriously. “If I am to die without a fight, let it at least be with a soft sigh.”

Hanzo’s hands were cool, not quite slimy, and their fingers dug wonderfully into the edge of McCree’s jaw. It should have made McCree feel like a dog, being given scratches and pets as affection. Then Hanzo moved closer, lifting themselves a little higher out of the water to press their lips together.

Closing his eyes, McCree sighed. He let Hanzo tug him further back, further over the water; then they fell, one of Hanzo’s fists buried in his blood-soaked serape, the other still pressing against his jaw.

The water was cold, bitterly cold, and McCree opened his eyes to find that it was clearer than he had expected. Below lay a hidden world of blue and green and grey-silver glass that extended into infinity in every direction.

Hanzo pulled him down…

…down…

…down.

McCree could see the rest of them now: a human torso of an attractive man with pale skin that merged into a serpent’s body, brilliant cerulean and ultramarine and turquoise and a thousand words for a thousand shades of blue that McCree had never known existed. Their tail seemed to stretch into infinity, just as the strange edges of the strange world around McCree. It lay in coils upon coils upon coils like glowing rope without an end in sight.

He gasped and silver bubbles, his dying breaths, raced toward the surface. Pulling himself closer, he pressed his lips to Hanzo’s again and felt them smile, felt their cool hands wrap around his waist to draw him closer.

McCree squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead against Hanzo’s as they sank lower and lower and lower.

**Open your eyes,** a voice echoed in the blue-green-grey glass world. McCree knew instinctively that it was Hanzo’s.

McCree swallowed. Their descent slowed and McCree wondered how deep they were, if there was any light for him to see anything.  _ What will I see if I do? _ He wanted to ask but couldn’t.

**Open your eyes,** Hanzo said again.  **And find out.**

Steeling himself, McCree opened his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> I realized that I had forgotten to add this to my calendar to post here. 
> 
> While <strike>procrastinating</strike> working on another project, I started thinking about it and realized that I could post it here! This one was a lot of fun to write, for all it's so short. I liked having an open ending...what did McCree see? Death? A different world? Hanzo? 
> 
> Feel free to come and yell at me on Twitter at [dracoduceus](https://twitter.com/dracoduceus). I try to post updates to what I'm working on and when/where I post things. It's a habit I'm still developing but I like to think that I'm getting better!
> 
> In any case, I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for indulging me. 
> 
> ~DC


End file.
